Remedial sandpaper letters

Montessori says to introduce sandpaper letters to a child around 2 1/2 years old. These are the typical shape and color. The blues are vowels and the pinks are consonants. The child will trace the letter while making the sound and associate the sound with the shape, not nessesarily the name of the letter. But they could eventually be used for that too. (I think the moveable alphabet may be more for that kind of recognition. We are having fun with that too! I will post on it later.)

Jer knows his sounds and names of the letters. What I am to using them for is handwriting, which is another benefit of the early use of the letters. I learned D'Nealian or Italic handwriting when I was homeschooled in 5th and 6th grades. It was a much needed change in my handwriting that was barely, if at all, legible. I had not developed the concentration or control that I needed to slow down and be purposeful with my writing. D'Nealian is a style that is fluid and keeps your pen on the paper as much as possible and helped me get the words on the paper legibly. I am already seeing this tendency in Jer so I decided to go with this style instead of the cursive handwriting that Montessori usually introduces.


Since I am using a different handwriting style I can't just order as set from anyone. I saw This set on Sew Liberated and they are from the Etsy shop Polliwog which is operated by Michelle.

I contacted her and asked if she had a D'Nealian font. She was very helpful and was even able to tweak some things for us. It is an investment (as are most Montessori materials) but I know that baby K will be able to use them too.

Here is Jer with the beautiful set. I got the smaller size and hoped that would make them even more enticing for him. Well, just tracing them wasn't cutting it. So we started playing what we call the vowel game. It's kinda like scrabble (which he loves right now). We lay all the vowels out first, one of use using capitals and one lowercase. Then we make words around the vowels. Whoever has the most letters used wins.

When we are finished spelling the word, we trace the letters. It's introducing them to him and helping me brush up on letter shapes too! We also have the numbers 1-10, they are in the basket there, and are green. 

Being creative with the materials seems to be the key to introducing them for remedial work. Using what he is interested in right now (or is sensitive to, as Montessori says it) is a great help for ideas of how to use them.

I couldn't find much on using the materials remedially when I wanted to introduce Montessori to Jer. I hope these posts will be helpful for you who want to share the wonderful experiences with your children! 

What response have your children had to sandpaper letters? Have you used them in creative ways? Continue the conversation in the comments!